Fugue
by Laurie M
Summary: Written for an LiveJournal prompt. At Helen's funeral, Winona realises just how much of an outsider she is in Harlan.


_**Disclaimer: **Justified _ain't mine. Sadly. Comments welcome.

_**Author Note:**_This was written for **norgbelulah**'s excellent _Summer In Harlan _fic meme at LiveJournal. The prompt for this story was: Winona, Ava - Helen's funeral.

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><p><em><strong>Fugue<strong>_

Plate in hand, she looks over the buffet and decides that there isn't much, or anything at all, that she would want to put in her mouth. Not that the food doesn't look appetising, but the good folks of Harlan County seem to have a firm belief in deep-fried everything. She can barely keep down salad at the moment and feels her stomach roil in protest.

The house is bigger than Winona had imagined but ramshackle; there's a messy homeliness on the inside but an air of neglect hovers over the place and then there are the gravestones-

She shudders, and her stomach roils again.

She should put something on her plate, just for politeness' sake, just to show willing.

It's the one room that is relatively quiet and she's grateful for a few moments away from the crush of people who seem to be in every corner of the house. Helen Givens had clearly been a well-known and much-respected person in these parts. The bowls and platters of food on the groaning table are a testimony to her. She tries to imagine the kind of woman she was and can't really. Someone whose loss has hurt Raylan so deeply that when she looks at him she can see the wound; someone he rarely spoke about. He had loved her and she can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had heard him mention Helen's name before she died.

A figure through the doors leading from the front parlour and the hum of voices and she glances up and holds the look.

Ava Crowder, all long legs and golden hair.

She has nothing, she is certain, to reproach herself for but even so she feels a stab of guilt and wonders if maybe she owes this woman some sort of apology.

Ava, paused on the threshold, resumes her walk towards the table. 'Winona, right?' She draws out the syllables of the name, as though she can't quite place her. As though waking up hungover and handcuffed in Winona's house hadn't been enough to form an actual memory.

It's unexpected and Winona feels herself wrong-footed, hesitates over her own response and swears she sees a gleam of triumph in the other woman's eyes. But then there's a smile, sweet and dazzling.

'Nice to see you again, Winona.'

She manages a smile of her own, considerably more forced. 'You too.'

Ava's head tips, graciously, and she starts picking over the spread, dividing her choices between two plates. One for herself, one for the man she's with.

There had been a moment, when Ava and her escort had arrived, where Raylan had stopped, everything in him shutting down and she had thought, in that moment, that it had been at seeing Ava, seeing her with another man but she had realised, almost at once and for a reason she doesn't understand, that it hadn't been Ava at all. It had been him, the stranger with the wild dark hair and frighteningly intense eyes.

'Excuse me.'

She starts, and Ava gives her another smile, taut and polite this time. 'Sorry,' mumbled, and she takes a step back while Ava leans across her, takes a spoonful of potato salad and deposits it on one of the plates.

She isn't used to feeling like this: out of place, uncertain and helpless. She wants to get in the car and drive away. She wants to never set foot back in Harlan again, with these people she doesn't know and doesn't want to. Her eyes seek Raylan, through the doors and in the other room and she finds him easily enough. He doesn't look at her. He's talking to someone - rather, he appears to be listening while someone Winona doesn't know _(she doesn't know any of them) _is talking to him - but his eyes are across the room and fixed on Ava's friend.

A room and a whole lot of other people between them, but you wouldn't know it. And when the other man turns his head and meets Raylan's gaze she's pretty sure there may as well not be anyone else in the whole damn world right at that moment. She watches them.

There's a superficial resemblance, she thinks. The same height, the same lean frame, even something in the strong lines of the jawbone.

Maybe it's because she hasn't eaten; maybe it's the sense she's had all day of being on the edges of something, this almost dreamlike unreality, but she has the unsettling impression of seeing a mirror image. Distorted, muddied, but visible. She doesn't know this man, but she _knows_ him, sees in him Raylan Givens if life had been different, if it had been even harder, crueller.

She shakes it off, or tries to and she turns to Ava who is still fussing with the plates and rearranging things on the table and asks, 'I'm sorry, but that man you came with...'

Ava's eyes flick towards him, an instinctive movement as unconscious as the slight upward quirk of her lips when she looks at him. 'That's Boyd. Boyd Crowder.'

She can't help the way her mind works. Any name she's ever transcribed, she remembers: who and where and under what circumstances. It's one of the things that makes her good at her job, one of the reasons why judges trust her, request her specially. She remembers this name.

Boyd Crowder, the man Raylan had shot in Ava's house.

Ava, who had severed her own matrimonial ties with a hunting-rifle.

'Your brother-in-law?'

Ava blinks, faint surprise and Winona can't tell if it's because she knows that detail or if it's because Ava clearly doesn't think of him like that. 'That's right.'

Winona raises her eyebrows, lips pursing. 'That must be pretty complicated.'

The golden head tilts, considering. 'Well, I guess you'd know plenty about complicated relationships.'

So much for sweet, she thinks, and she's wrong-footed again and furious.

Ava puts down the plate she's holding and sighs. 'I'm sorry. That was uncalled for.'

Winona hesitates, blows out a breath. 'Yes, well... It's not like you're wrong.'

They study each other for a moment and then comes the exchange of wry smiles. And she feels some of the tension banding her head lessen.

Ava takes her lower lip between her teeth, bits down on it, releases it and asks, voice low, 'How is he?' She jerks her head towards Raylan, as though needing to clarify who she is asking about.

'Oh, he's...' Winona shakes her head. 'He'll be fine.' Because he'll have to be; in the end, they'll all just have to be. Ava nods, like she understands. Maybe she does, Winona thinks. Maybe she also sees mirrors. 'Did you know Helen well?'

'Sure, I knew her all my life.'

It comes easily, without a thought; and once again Winona is relegated to the outside. The most she knows of Helen are the few things she heard from Raylan, and the photograph that stands near the table. Two young women, both dark-haired and beautiful, one defiant, one with an air of quiet desperation, either side of a boy with a serious expression. And frighteningly intense eyes.

And Ava just knows. All the things, all the people that Winona never will and she envies her that. It doesn't mean that this woman understands him or knows him any better and she probably doesn't want to but she knows the things that might answer the questions that have buzzed around Winona's head ever since she took a seat in a bar beside a man in a cowboy hat back in Salt Lake City.

But even if she asked all the questions and even if Ava did answer every one of them, maybe it wouldn't make any difference at all. Raylan would still be Raylan. It would still just be him and her.

'Are you okay?' The voice cuts through and she finds Ava standing close to her, frowning, concerned.

She decides that this is ridiculous. 'I'm fine.'

The frown deepens. 'Maybe you should eat something.'

'Honestly, I' -she waves a hand- 'I'm not hungry.'

Ava's eyes slide over her, thoughtful. 'The potato salad's pretty good.' She lowers her voice. 'And it's made with low-fat mayo.'

She can't help but laugh. 'Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.'

More people enter and the two women step back from the table, Ava clutching her plates. 'Y'know-' She stops, tosses the hair away from her face, starts again. 'Helen was pretty important to a lot of people around these parts. She was ... she was a Harlan woman.' It's said as though it explains everything and it probably does if you understand what that means. 'She would have liked you. A lot.'

'Thank you, Ava,' she says, and she means it.

Ava's eyes go from her, beyond the frame of the battered double-doors and meet the eyes of that man, Boyd Crowder, who hasn't moved from where he'd been standing but whose gaze seems to find Ava without needing to look for her at all. She smiles again, slightly, reassuring and after a moment he looks away.

'I should...' Ava begins, her body already angling away.

'Of course. It was nice seeing you again.' She pauses. 'Listen, Ava-'

She shakes her head. 'Don't. I reckon everyone's where they're meant to be, don't you?'

Maybe it isn't just Raylan; maybe it's just how it goes in Harlan - the things that aren't said are the things that speak the most. She nods.

'You take care. And eat something,' she adds, before she goes through the doors.

Later, on the drive back to Lexington Raylan finally gets around to it and his eyes slide towards her, _hands a little tight on the wheel,_ and says, 'I saw you talking to Ava.'

'Oh?'

A long pause. 'You talk about anything special?'

'Potato salad - it was recommended.' And it had been pretty good.

He makes that noise in the back of his throat, the one that signifies his non-amusement.

She rests her elbow against the window, pillows her cheek on her palm. 'You mean, did we talk about you?'

'That's not what I asked.'

'But it's what you meant,' she insists. His eyes slide sideways again, reproachful and pleading. She laughs slightly; and she thinks over the conversation then tells him truthfully, 'Honestly, Raylan, we didn't really talk about you.'


End file.
